The Lion at Bay. Robert Low
knobbed on too-thin flesh, the muscle on him corded.
‘Ye are Bangtail Hob,’ Wallace said and had a nod in reply.
‘Ye are seekin’ me, it seems. Whit why – to join us?’
‘God, naw.’
The cry was out before Bangtail could smother it and he heard the growl from them, saw the cold-eyed, curled-lip gleam and started to back out of the hole he had walked himself into.
‘I have done my fighting with ye,’ he answered, trying to make amends and having to drown the spear in his throat with swallowed spit. ‘At Cambuskenneth and again in the trees at Callendar.’
‘Ye were there?’ Wallace remarked and Bangtail bridled at the mild sneer in it.
‘With lord Henry o’ Herdmanston. We saved yer skin yon day,’ he answered harshly.
Now Wallace remembered and the cold stone of what had to be done sat in his belly even deeper. He remembered the day and how the brace of Templar knights had almost ridden him down save for the skill and courage of Hal of Herdmanston and another – Sim Craw, that was it. Sim and his big latchbow.
And this one, or so he claimed. Wallace tried to see this Bangtail’s face on a man that day but could not make it work.
‘So – ye do not wish to stand with us, wee man,’ he said lightly. ‘Why, then, are ye here?’
Bangtail breathed in.
‘The Earl of Carrick bids ye friendship and his regard and offers what help ye might need to quit the realm for your own safety for there are those who would do you harm and give you in to the English.’
It was delivered all of a piece and Bangtail could not get the words out of his mouth fast enough. There were growls and it was not Bangtail’s feverish imagination that heard dissent. Wallace was silent for a time, then shifted.
‘Well, ye have delivered Bruce’s message. He has gave me it afore, but refuses to listen to any of my answers. Mayhap he will listen to this one.’
Bangtail’s skin crawled when Wallace said no more and the man with the broken nose grinned, wolf sharp and evil.
‘I came here thinkin’ this to be a perjink well-conducted meet,’ he hoarsed out. ‘Held by an honourable chiel.’
Wallace nodded, almost sadly. Men grabbed Bangtail’s arms and he struggled briefly, his heart pounding. He could not believe this was happening.
‘Ye thought wrang-wisely,’ Wallace said, gentle, bitter and sad, a note that chilled Bangtail to his belly. ‘We are trailbaston. Outlaws. You see how it is – we need time here an’ if I let ye loose, we will have to be on the move. Besides – yer master needs my answer.’
‘I will say not one thing about your presence here,’ Bangtail protested and was appalled at the whine that had appeared in his voice.
‘So you say,’ Wallace replied flatly, ‘but there was a man with ye and there may be more. I have others to think on besides my own self.’
‘I fought for you!’ Bangtail howled, seeing it now and struggling, far too late. Broken-Nose, grinning, started to unsheath a dagger and Wallace laid a hand on his wrist. For a moment, hope leaped like a salmon in Bangtail.
‘No,’ Wallace said firmly, then drew his own. ‘He deserves this at least.’
The blow drove the air from Bangtail and he sat, released from the arms, trying to suck in a breath and leaking snot and tears. Then the burn of it hit him. Then the pain. He found himself on his back, staring through the latticed trees, feeling a wry laugh bubble in him at the thought of how this had come about. Two threes instead of two fives and here he was in his worst nightmare – dying alone, cold and old …
‘Hang him from yon tree near Mariotta’s place,’ Wallace ordered Long Jack, feeling as if he had been slimed with someone’s sick.
‘You were not always as hard,’ said Jinnet’s Jean, starting to strip Bangtail of his welcome clothes and boots. Wallace said nothing, though he wanted to snarl that he did it for them, though it choked him.
Freedom, he thought. This is what it feels like.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lincoln
The Feast of St John the Evangelist, December, 1304
It was all familiar, but tainted with the rust of long neglect and Bruce was alarmed by how fumbling he felt. He saw the distant shape of Malenfaunt on a powerful, arch-necked beast – not his own, for certes; Bruce wondered if it was one of Buchan’s, or even one of the King’s.
He saw the sudden clench and curl of it, knew that Malenfaunt was spurring the beast and, with a sick lurch, dug his heels in to Phoebus, feeling the huge muscled rump gather and spring, almost rocking him backwards so that the lance wavered wildly.
Seventy ells separated them and they were at lance-length in the time it took to say ‘Sire Pere, qui es es ceaus’. Bruce saw his lance slide over the top of Malenfaunt’s shield and miss his helmet by the length of a horse whisker – then the clatter of lance on his own shield slammed him sideways, reeling him in the saddle. Phoebus faltered, lost rhythm and rocked Bruce back upright before cantering on.
Stunned, shocked, Bruce fought the horse round. Christ’s Bones, he shrieked to himself, his breathing a thunderous roar inside the helm, what madness drove me to this? Possession by some imp of Satan?
The Curse of Malachy, a voice nagged at the back of his mind.
Then Phoebus was round and he was thundering back down the tiltyard, trying to keep the long ash shaft’s bouncing point somewhere in the region of Malenfaunt’s unscarred shield.
Malenfaunt, snatching up his second lance from the rack, was blazed with a relief bordering on the exultant – Bruce was inept. He could not fight like this, as Buchan had said and that lance stroke was one a still-wet squire would have scorned.
He wrenched the head of the beast round, feeling it fight back against the cruel barb of the bit and cursing it until he deafened himself in the helmet. Then he levelled his lance and rowelled the animal into a great, leaping canter, hearing his own voice howling.
Bruce saw the mad plunge of it and felt, as well as the fear, an anger that burned it away like morning mist. He was an earl, one of the recognized best knights of Christendom and would not be made afraid by anyone. He sat deeper in the cantled saddle, straightened his legs out in the stirrups, urged Phoebus with his weight alone and sprang forward.
They clashed and the crowd roared at the perfection of the strokes, two lances burying their leafed points in each shield and shattering with a simultaneous crack that shivered splinters higher in the air than anyone could have thrown.
Bruce rocked with the blow and Phoebus staggered sideways, crossing feet over each other, at first delicate as a cat and then stumbling like a drunk. Malenfaunt felt his head snap and his teeth cracked wickedly on his tongue; the horse was flung from a canter to a dead stop and sank back on its powerful haunches, skidding furrows along the sand.
Bruce reached the far end, reined round, sobbing for breath. He threw down the splintered lance butt, worried the shattered point out of his shield and flung it away, more to give him and horse breathing space than anything. At the far end, he saw Malenfaunt drop his own shattered lance and seem to sit there while the horse snorted and shifted beneath him.
Had he given in? Too injured to continue? In his heart, Bruce knew the lie of it; this was à l’outrance and there was no giving in at the edge of extremity, until one or the other was forced to it, for a loss here stripped you of honour and dignity. Under the rules, it stripped you of life, too, since your opponent had the right – the duty – to kill you and the very least that could be expected was that the tongue with which you swore your falsehood to God would be removed.